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The Films of Leni Riefenstahl
A controversial reappraisal of the Nazi filmmaker Riefenstahl ( Triumph of the will ), based on her personal archives and film collection, and Hinton's interviews with Albert Speer ( Inside the Third Reich ), The second edition (first in 1978) incorporates information from her memoirs, recently published in Germany, and discusses the legal rights to her films. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
1 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1991
15 people want to read
About the author
David B. Hinton
2 books3 followersI am a practicing Buddhist (Tibetan/Vajrayana) and have been a student of the Ven. Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Ven. Khenpo Tsewang Donguyal Rinpoche for 23 years. My wife and I became Buddhists together we have made three fascinating pilgrimages to India to visit the holy sites of The Buddha.
After spending a large amount of my life devoted to watching, studying,and teaching about films, I find that at this stage in my life I am more willing to spend my time reading literary fiction, poetry, and history.
I received a B.A. in history from Drake University, after studying my junior year abroad at Schiller College in Heidelberg, Germany.
Later I received an M.A. in Film Studies/Film History from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from Vanderbilt University.
After receiving my doctorate, I served as Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs for Watkins College of Art & Design in Nashville, TN and Dean of Academic Affairs at The Art Institute of Tennessee-Nashville.
After leaving academic administration, I taught history at Vanderbilt University,Middle Tennessee State University, and Motlow College.
After spending a large amount of my life devoted to watching, studying,and teaching about films, I find that at this stage in my life I am more willing to spend my time reading literary fiction, poetry, and history.
I received a B.A. in history from Drake University, after studying my junior year abroad at Schiller College in Heidelberg, Germany.
Later I received an M.A. in Film Studies/Film History from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from Vanderbilt University.
After receiving my doctorate, I served as Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs for Watkins College of Art & Design in Nashville, TN and Dean of Academic Affairs at The Art Institute of Tennessee-Nashville.
After leaving academic administration, I taught history at Vanderbilt University,Middle Tennessee State University, and Motlow College.
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September 24, 2025
The German director Leni Riefenstahl is best known for her documentary Triumph of the Will, chronicling the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. Its gargantuan displays of disciplined columns of soldiers rallying around both Hitler and the sense of a resurrected German spirit, the striking sea of blood flags, the magnesium torch rally at night and the famous wreath ceremony scene have become the definitive depiction of Nazi aesthetics, conjuring the Roman symbol of imperium in their authority, dignity and virility.
Less known is Riefenstahl's early career as an actress in the "mountain film" genre that became such a hallmark of German identity in the 20s and 30s and the first films she directed, The Blue Light, which caught Hitler's attention.
The Blue Light captures the haunting beauty of the mountains and its story exudes a sense of folkishness. The iconic and mystical shots of clouds surrounding mountain peaks is echoed in later films like Triumph's airborne opening; the descent of Hitler's plane from a sea of clouds.
But "to conclude that the mountain films were fascist in nature is to overlook the historical antecedents of the films, namely, the German Romantic movement, which revered the mountains as symbols of beauty and purity that were free from the corruptions of man...Since the Nazis revered the villages as the cornerstone of their concept of the Volksgemeinschaft" the symbolism of the mountains emerge as a rejection of that concept.
Hinton's book was written in 1978 and therefore it was still believed that the first film of the so-called Nuremberg trilogy (Victory of Faith) had been destroyed at the end of the war, but it has since been discovered. I believe Faith is a slightly superior film to Triumph as its speeches are more profound, especially Hitler's address to the Hitler Youth, but both films are equally historically significant.
The production details of her various documentaries make it clear that the rallying crowd reactions Riefenstahl captured were authentic and candid, not staged for her benefit as mere propaganda as some critics claim. Hinton's book dispels the claim that the she was motivated by or controlled by the Propaganda Ministry by showing that by keeping her production company separate from the Party, she retained complete creative control over her films, even to the point of disagreements with Hitler over not including a lineup of the Wehrmacht generals in Triumph. Goebbels was constantly attempting to thwart her efforts out of resentment that she never agreed to join the Nazi party. Speer, the architect of the rallies she documented, has denied that they were planned hand-in-hand with Riefenstahl's filming. In fact, he rarely accommodated her requests for modifications of the events.
Her masterpiece Olympia, the massive documentary of the 1936 Olympic Games held in Germany, is the culmination of not just her skills, but her eye for beauty. The dreamlike prologue begins in Ancient Greece, panning the ruins and visually caressing classical statues strewn along the way until the famous statue of the discus thrower of Myron is transformed into a real-life figure, the beauty of the male form on full display in various athletic movements from discus to javelin to shot-put. Then a group of nude women dancers representing the ancient keepers of the sacred flame dissolve and form into a flame, the Olympic fire and a young man, the embodiment of classical beauty, lights the torch and it is relayed across across time and space to the 1936 Games where the flame is kindled by the torch bearer in the stadium, the first Olympic Flame relay of its kind. Commenting on this ceremony, Hitler said: "The sportive, knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn't separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. It also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace. That's why the Olympic Flame should never die."
The most striking scene aside from the prologue is the diving sequence where Riefenstahl captures the beautiful movements of the divers in slow motion, suspended in the air in a ballet; it is a creation of beauty that seems unreal and dreamlike.
"Indeed, all of Riefenstahl's films are dominated by two concerns: either the beauty of nature and physical surroundings, or the beauty of the human body, and, as a corollary, the beauty of the body in movement, either single (as in Olympia) or in mass (as in Triumph)."
One of the most interesting parts of the book is the chapter on Penthesilea, which was going to be Riefenstahl's grand masterpiece based on Kleist's play. Her plans for the film were epic on a scale of Wagner's Ring cycle. It was to depict the tale of a battle between Achilles and the Amazons. "Not a single scene was to be realistically photographed. Even the battle scenes were to be filmed in such a way that they appeared much like the ancient Greek bas-reliefs. They were to be filmed against a cloudless blue sky with a filter causing a grayish tone on the battlefield. It would be the reverse of the Olympia prologue; instead of statues to life, she would convert life into statues."
Anyone who has seen the breathtaking beauty of Olympia's prologue will agree it's a tragedy that Riefenstahl never got to make Penthesilea a reality.
Less known is Riefenstahl's early career as an actress in the "mountain film" genre that became such a hallmark of German identity in the 20s and 30s and the first films she directed, The Blue Light, which caught Hitler's attention.
The Blue Light captures the haunting beauty of the mountains and its story exudes a sense of folkishness. The iconic and mystical shots of clouds surrounding mountain peaks is echoed in later films like Triumph's airborne opening; the descent of Hitler's plane from a sea of clouds.
But "to conclude that the mountain films were fascist in nature is to overlook the historical antecedents of the films, namely, the German Romantic movement, which revered the mountains as symbols of beauty and purity that were free from the corruptions of man...Since the Nazis revered the villages as the cornerstone of their concept of the Volksgemeinschaft" the symbolism of the mountains emerge as a rejection of that concept.
Hinton's book was written in 1978 and therefore it was still believed that the first film of the so-called Nuremberg trilogy (Victory of Faith) had been destroyed at the end of the war, but it has since been discovered. I believe Faith is a slightly superior film to Triumph as its speeches are more profound, especially Hitler's address to the Hitler Youth, but both films are equally historically significant.
The production details of her various documentaries make it clear that the rallying crowd reactions Riefenstahl captured were authentic and candid, not staged for her benefit as mere propaganda as some critics claim. Hinton's book dispels the claim that the she was motivated by or controlled by the Propaganda Ministry by showing that by keeping her production company separate from the Party, she retained complete creative control over her films, even to the point of disagreements with Hitler over not including a lineup of the Wehrmacht generals in Triumph. Goebbels was constantly attempting to thwart her efforts out of resentment that she never agreed to join the Nazi party. Speer, the architect of the rallies she documented, has denied that they were planned hand-in-hand with Riefenstahl's filming. In fact, he rarely accommodated her requests for modifications of the events.
Her masterpiece Olympia, the massive documentary of the 1936 Olympic Games held in Germany, is the culmination of not just her skills, but her eye for beauty. The dreamlike prologue begins in Ancient Greece, panning the ruins and visually caressing classical statues strewn along the way until the famous statue of the discus thrower of Myron is transformed into a real-life figure, the beauty of the male form on full display in various athletic movements from discus to javelin to shot-put. Then a group of nude women dancers representing the ancient keepers of the sacred flame dissolve and form into a flame, the Olympic fire and a young man, the embodiment of classical beauty, lights the torch and it is relayed across across time and space to the 1936 Games where the flame is kindled by the torch bearer in the stadium, the first Olympic Flame relay of its kind. Commenting on this ceremony, Hitler said: "The sportive, knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn't separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. It also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace. That's why the Olympic Flame should never die."
The most striking scene aside from the prologue is the diving sequence where Riefenstahl captures the beautiful movements of the divers in slow motion, suspended in the air in a ballet; it is a creation of beauty that seems unreal and dreamlike.
"Indeed, all of Riefenstahl's films are dominated by two concerns: either the beauty of nature and physical surroundings, or the beauty of the human body, and, as a corollary, the beauty of the body in movement, either single (as in Olympia) or in mass (as in Triumph)."
One of the most interesting parts of the book is the chapter on Penthesilea, which was going to be Riefenstahl's grand masterpiece based on Kleist's play. Her plans for the film were epic on a scale of Wagner's Ring cycle. It was to depict the tale of a battle between Achilles and the Amazons. "Not a single scene was to be realistically photographed. Even the battle scenes were to be filmed in such a way that they appeared much like the ancient Greek bas-reliefs. They were to be filmed against a cloudless blue sky with a filter causing a grayish tone on the battlefield. It would be the reverse of the Olympia prologue; instead of statues to life, she would convert life into statues."
Anyone who has seen the breathtaking beauty of Olympia's prologue will agree it's a tragedy that Riefenstahl never got to make Penthesilea a reality.
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